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A great WWE blu ray

WWE Summerslam 2012 is a WWE pay-per-view that aired on August 19th 2012. Summerslam is the WWE's second largest event of the year behind Wrestlemania, and usually features a card that is full of exciting and brilliant matches. This year is the 25th Anniversary of the Summerslam pay-per-view, and WWE were really behind it to make it a stand out show for the crowds, and featuring some highly anticpated matches including Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar, Sheamus vs. Alberto Del Rio and CM Punk vs John Cena vs Big Show. The show came from Los Angeles in California, and was a sell-out show. The blu-ray of the show is presented in WWE HD, and features the entire Summerslam Pay-Per-View as well as blu-ray exclusive extras.

The show kicks off with the match of Chris Jericho vs. Dolph Ziggler. I've been a Jericho fan for years, whereas Ziggler is a guy I can't warm to at all. At the previous pay-per-view, Money in the Bank, Ziggler won the coveted 'Money in the Bank briefcase' for the World Heavyweight Championship. For this match, Ziggler is accompanied to the ring by his 'manager' Vickie Guerrero, and I found it to be a great opening match for the show. Both are extremely talented performers, with Ziggler being the best seller in the company at the moment (making moves look painful and good!). Both put in a few highspots in this match, and I was interested in it from the beginning. Jericho was good at getting a good reaction from the crowd too, and both men performed really well. After this we get a brief interview with Brock Lesnar and his manager Paul Heyman, hepls for the hype of the match and to get the crowd going.

Next match of the night was Kane vs. Daniel Bryan. Kane has been a wrestler for donkey's year and is always good to watch, but Bryan is a real upcomer in the company and his matches are always worth a watch. He knows how to work the crowd as well, and he has a great charisma that is good to watch. This is the match that kicked off the feud between the pair for the big leagues, and was entertaining, although not the match of the night. There were a couple of great spots in there, with the crowd really winding up Daniel Bryan for the comic value which was great. I enjoyed the finish to this one as well, a good match. Following this, we see a big of backstage action to completely finish the match off which was a good addition.

Up next was a very lacklustre match, Rey Mysterio vs The Miz for the Intercontinental Championship. For me, Miz is just a terrible wrestler, his promos are hideous, he looks clumsy in the ring and I cannot fathom how he has got so big within the company. Miz was the champion heading into this match. Mysterio was the challenger, and while a few years ago he was hot property in the company, I feel he's slowed down a lot lately and isn't performing at full health, and at times in this match looks a little pained. He is a hugely talented wrestler, and is one of the best high-flyers but I found this match lacked chemistry. There were some good parts to this match though, and both performers sold it well throughout. The match lasted just under 15 minutes, and the audience sounded into this match. Following this a great backstage spot between CM Punk and Raw manager AJ Lee... very funny spot with these two, and Punk as usual is fantastic, the two have great chemistry.

Up next was another title defence, with current World Heavyweight Champion Sheamus going up against Mexican aristocrat Alberto Del Rio, with his ring announcer Ricardo Rodriguez at ringside. Again this match had been building for a while, and WWE ran a great promo before it started, I do love their promos, they are very well done. This match runs for nearly 22 minutes, and both wrestlers put in a great performance and are fun and exciting to watch. Del Rio impresses with his entrance in a Ferrari California, and works his heel (bad guy) persona to the max during the match. Sheamus in particular is a very physical athlete, and he is a great in-ring worker, and both men work excellently off each other for the duration. I enjoyed this match,and both men really give it their all. The crowd seem really into this one too, and it deserved to be a bit higher up the card than it was.

Up next is probably the least interesting match of the night... The Tag Team Championship match. The current champions Kofi Kingston and R-Truth are up against The Prime Time Players, a team I really don't get and am not especially interested in seeing. Again, this has been building for a while, but at just a few seconds over 7 minutes, it's over before it's begun and the audience either in the stadium or at home don't have a chance to get into it. It's disappointing as Truth and Kofi are excellent performers, but aren't given the chance to really shine here. After this is a promotional video about the Summerslam Axxess event held in LA before the event. It was fun to watch and it's nice to see the personalities out of the ring.

The undercard match was for the WWE Championship. It was current champion CM Punk in a triple threat match against Big Show and John Cena. At this point, Punk had held the title for around 9 months, so WWE was billing this as a serious threat to Punk's reign, due to the fact he doesn't have to be pinned to lose the title. Again, a great promo aired before the match, and really bigged up CM Punk as champion, and rivalry between the three men. For me, the match was too short, and I felt it was hurried to get to the main event which was a shame. However, all 3 performers really work the crowd so well, and wrestled fantastically. Big Show really used his size against the two other guys, especially the much physically smaller champion. The crowd are pretty anti-Big Show and as usual split on John Cena, and are clearly pro-Punk despite the fact he's attempting a heel turn. Big Show dominates the beginning of the match, using his huge size against them both and we're left wondering what Cena and Punk can do. Eventually the two foes realise they'll have to work together against the giant Show, but it isn't quite as easy as it seems. It's a physical match, and the men all work well together to create an exciting match... I especially loved that Punk and Cena both manage to get the nearly 500lb Big Show up onto their shoulders! The triple threat element makes it a bit more exciting, and leaves you wondering how Punk will retain the title, if at all. There's a hugely controversial finish to the match which stops it being boring, and I thought this was a fun way to keep the momentum going, and also continued Punk's feud with Raw GM AJ. For me, the best and most entertaining match of the night, and should have been the main event. Worth watching just for the physicality of the men involved. Brilliant.

Before the main event, we get a live performance of the pay-per-view's theme song, Don't Give Up by American singer Kevin Rudolf. It's a good performance and gets the crowd going, especially as WWE have been madly plugging this song in the build up to the match. Sound quality on the blu-ray is good, and it's an enjoyable watch. The main event of the show was the highly anticipated and hugely billed match, Triple H vs Brock Lesnar. This match has been building up for a long time, and was signed and sealed at Raw 1000 in July 2012, and since then the WWE Universe have been eagerly awaiting this match. I have to say that while it had its good moment, I found it to be a fairly disappointing match. Lesnar seemed to dominate for much of it, but I find his in-ring style to be quite lumbering due to his size, and he isn't that exciting to watch. Triple H seems a lot slower than he used to be, probably due to his age, but it's a shame as he used to be one of the top wrestlers in the whole company. Fans of either Lesnar or Triple H will love this match, but for me it was a disappointment. I don't think it'll be their last encounter, I think they are due to fight again at the upcoming Wrestlemania 29 in April, and I hope they can deliver better than this.

As with all blu-rays from the WWE Pay-per-views, this one comes with blu-ray exclusive on it, which are under the Special Features tab on the main menu screen. This disc features several important matches and features from the Raw before the Summerslam show, August 13th, and from Smackdown on August 17th too. Highlights include CM Punk's match against the Big Show, really setting up the pay per view match, the contract signing between Brock Lesnar and Triple H, and the tag team match between Big Show and Daniel Bryan vs CM Punk and Cena. This final match alone is nearly 30 minutes of an extra, so they are always great value for money and worth a watch. I always like to see them as they are always a good build-up for the pay per view, and they do usually choose the best things for the extras, there aren't often any duff moments on there.

This is a great value pay-per-view from WWE, and is well worth buying if you are a WWE fan. The quality of the show is fantastic, and the picture is crisp and clear on my TV screen (played through my PS3 blu-ray player). Even the main menu video running behind the title screen is fantastically put-together, it's a great product and in my opinion, it's always paying a tiny bit more for the WWE blu-ray, for the picture quality and the extras that you get each time. While I felt the main event was a bit of a let-down and some of the matches weren't hugely exciting, Summerslam 2012 was a good pay-per-view, and the Triple Threat WWE Title match was fantastic and really picked up the pace for the whole show. Commentary throughout the show comes from Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler, and is fun to listen to as you're watching. I enjoyed watching this pay-per-view and am pleased to have it in my collection.

The blu-ray is available for just £6.99 from www.silvervision.co.uk. The DVD is also available which features the entire Summerslam show, but without the blu-ray exclusives. It's highly over-priced on Amazon so don't bother buying from there!

Match of the show:CM Punk (champion) vs. Big Show vs. John CenaWorst match of the show:Kofi Kingston and R-Truth vs. The Prime Time Players / Rey Mysterio vs. The Miz (I.C. Champion).